On Partisanship and Politics

I watched the whole State of the Union Address last night - all 80 minutes of it. Here’s my thoughts:

• It seemed really jocular. There were tons of laughs - and a lot of it was genuinely funny. But, really, time and a place. I haven’t watched a ton of these things, but it seemed kind of yukky to me, in the sense of yukking it on up.
• He said some good stuff. I liked what he said about nuclear power plants. He threw in some stuff on American ingenuity and breaks for small business. He seemed to be really trying to reach out to the folks who shlocked it to him in Massachusetts last week. Hey, we can work this out, you know?
• Some stuff I really didn’t like. When he kept crabbin’ about Republicans not playing nice, it seemed like total BS to me. It’s pretty clear to everyone that Barry O. has been trying to push through a far-left agenda, abetted by majorities in the House and Senate. What have Republicans had to go along with? Barry O.’s been acting like he didn’t need the Repubs for a while now, and then he starts talkin’ like the Republicans are some sticks in the mud for not going along. It’s like bitchin’ about somebody not coming to a party to which they weren’t invited.
• I didn’t, at all, like the comment directed at the Supreme Court. You don’t like what the Supreme Court does? Tough shit. Even if nobody believes that the Supreme Court is above politics, they still are and should be treated as such. No president should ever go where he went last night in his comments about the court. Ever. Seriously, it’s inviting anarchy to even insinuate that the President may be questioning the Court’s decision in a case.

In the end, it was clear that there really wasn’t any more information to be gathered from the speech. Barry’s playing like he’s chastened, but he’s like a bad basketball player giving a pass fake. It’s nothin’. He’s still cocky, but he doesn’t know that someone just stole his ball and is driving down to his hoop.

So what does this have to do with religion and culture? I don’t know. I don’t think that larger government is good for American culture. I think it’s the road to whatever the opposite of culture is: homogeneity, institutionality, dependence. It’s bad, it’s bad.

Wow, that all sounds really partisan. Am I a partisan? It seems like it’s hard to really be in the middle nowadays. What do you think?

St. Josemaria talks about appreciating where people like President Obama are coming from: there’s plenty of injustice in the world and it’s a good thing to be discontented with it. But I guess there it is - I can appreciate it, but I still find it a bad approach. Barack Obama scares me a bit. He’s not moderate, and nor are his policies or approaches. I don’t like it...